


a single busted pipe

by rey_of_sunlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Food Issues, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Minor Character Death, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 10:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13432332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rey_of_sunlight/pseuds/rey_of_sunlight
Summary: Rose has made a full recovery physically. Mentally, she has a long way to go.





	a single busted pipe

Twenty-four hours after Rose has been medically cleared to perform her normal duties, she has inspected and perfected all one hundred and eight of the astromech sockets on the Millennium Falcon. Her medical report considers her a remarkable recovery. Her psychological report, less so.   
  
Forty-eight hours after that, she has found every loose wire in the energy flush vent, soldered them precisely in place, and hidden from the sound of imaginary footsteps on thirty separate occasions.

  
She drinks precisely two small cups of water and neglects food altogether in that time. Collapsing from malnutrition and lack of sleep somewhere into hour fifty-nine of her fixing spree, Rose awakens back in the bunk she was nursed back to health in, being scolded for her negligence.

  
She stares at the ceiling, unable to summon the energy to care.   
                           

* * *

  
She hides more often now. She always did; ever since seeing her home on fire, her people enslaved, it made sense to make herself small, to find work that would keep her in corners and far away from greedy, grasping hands. When Rose can tuck herself away and find a problem overlooked, one she can solve alone, that is when the murderers and monsters who took Hays Minor seem the furthest away.

  
But it’s not the same anymore. Now Rose looks up from her knees to find herself in a corner she doesn’t remember entering. Now she spends hours at a time curled in cramped spaces between boilers and pressure gauges, in the gap between the Falcon’s washing machine and the wall. Now she bangs her hammer aimlessly, over and over, and she spends as much time blank-eyed or stifling her sobs or staring desperately out at the endless void as she does putting the ship back together. 

* * *

The thing is, Rose actually used to envy Paige. Where Rose trod lightly, Paige stomped; where Rose stuttered, Paige roared. Paige always said she wanted to show the galaxy that just because she had once been brought low, it didn’t mean she couldn’t rise up. Paige took her fury and pushed it outwards every bit as furiously as the guns she shot. Paige shook off Rose’s cautionary words. Rose cringed away from Paige’s recklessness.

  
But when Rose spent hours obsessing over the placement of a single wire in a ship’s engine, Paige was the one who led her to the mess hall and forced her to eat. When Paige ranted and paced the floor and punched the wall after another of the gunners was lost, Rose was the one to listen, and to talk her down.

  
So much for all that effort.

* * *

‘You’ve noticed, haven’t you?’ General Organa says. Her tone has its usual firm, ringing leadership, but to Rose it may as well be a shout. She nods, silently.

  
‘So what’s the issue with the plasma transvertor? Is it going to take long to fix it? Do we need a more specialised toolkit?’

  
The issue is that every time Rose tries to focus on the tangled mess of its inside, she sees the blinding light of the explosion that ripped Paige away from her. ‘I – it’s a time issue. I’ll look at it again and get it done pronto, General.’

  
‘I can get Rey on task as well – the girl seems to know flight mechanics like the back of her hand,’ the general adds. ‘Or Chewie. Both of ‘em are pretty busy, but that Wookiee was flying the Falcon when you were just a twinkle in your mother’s eye, and there’s a good chance he’ll know what it’s doing.’

  
‘Th-there’s no need, General,’ Rose stammers. Her hands begin to tremble, and she hides them behind her back. ‘I can handle it alone.’

  
General Organa’s gaze softens, just for a moment. ‘Rose, there’s no shame in admitting you’ve lost something.’

  
A lump rises in Rose’s throat. ‘If you’re accusing me of not being committed to our cause, General, I can assure you - ’

  
‘But there is shame,’ the General continues remorselessly, ‘in neglecting to deal with it. We’re too small in numbers for any of us to stand alone. The Resistance needs you, Rose, and we need each other. If we’re to have any hope in keeping the Dark Side at bay, we’ve got to help each other. If you can’t perform your duties, you have a responsibility to tell me so.’

  
A long moment of silence stretches between them.

  
‘I – I can perform my duties, and I will, General,’ Rose says at last, heart pounding.

  
For an instant, Rose thinks she detects a hint of pity in the General’s eyes, but it’s immediately replaced by a sharp look of command. ‘Then get back to them at once.’

* * *

Mourning, Rose thinks, is like a busted pipe. It isn’t dramatic; isn’t like a fuel tank being shot at where the ship dips and spins like crazy, trying desperately to make up for the sudden lack. It’s a hiss and a leak, a gradual drain that’s barely noticed, something never quite worth the resources to fix compared to what goes missing, until the engineer in charge looks up, feels twenty thousand litres of gas gone, and can’t think where it went.

  
After her conversation with the General, she flees to the Falcon’s dustiest, most neglected corner, and sinks down onto the floor. Paige is gone, Paige is gone, she thinks with every thump of her still traitorously-beating heart, and part of Rose thinks that all the Light Side of the Force left in the galaxy went with her.

  
A porg flutters out from behind the pipework, landing with a plop beside her.

  
‘Go away,’ she mumbles, putting her head into her hands. The last thing she needs right now is finding more feathers clogging up the Falcon’s mechanism, or losing her best wrench to the things’ ever-growing nest.

  
The porg waddles directly into her lap and snuggles into her torso. ‘Hey!’ she says, and makes shooing gestures at it, but it doesn’t budge.

  
Staring up at her with large black eyes, the thing squawks softly. For a second, Rose sees not an annoyance, but the creatures enslaved in Canto Bight, gentle and sad, the animals running from the First Order on Hays Minor.

  
It probably just took the opportunity to sit somewhere warm. Probably.

  
‘Rose?’ Finn’s voice suddenly echoes from around the corner.

  
She doesn’t want to answer.

  
‘Rose, I know you’re in there.’

  
She still says nothing.

  
And the porg lets out the loudest squawk Rose has heard from it yet. ‘Shut it!’ she snaps sharply – and then remembers who else is there to hear.

  
Finn emerges into Rose’s line of sight. ‘So there’s nobody in here, huh.’

  
‘I guess not.’

  
‘And I guess there’s nobody to keep me company while I take a breather,’ he says, sitting down beside her.

  
‘Nope,’ she says, looking away.

  
‘I know how you feel,’ Finn says, after a pause.

  
‘No, you don’t,’ Rose says sharply.

  
To her surprise, Finn answers, ‘I guess not. I…I…look, I’m sorry. I don’t know exactly what to say, but - ’

  
And he hugs her. She freezes. What if he rubs her back or strokes her cheek or returns that kiss she gave him? She deliberately has not thought about it since waking up after that last battle. There isn’t room in her head for that, not now, not when –

  
But Finn feels her stiffening, and pulls back. ‘Sorry. Again.’ He sighs. ‘You’re right. I don’t know how you feel. But I know how it was for me.’

  
Rose lets out a breath as he moves a little further away. ‘How...was it for you?’

  
‘I left people behind,’ Finn says, in a low voice. ‘Not family. None of us knew where we were from or anything like that – but we knew each other. I don’t know if my squadron are dead or alive or what now, but it still hurts just the same.’

  
‘It hurts for you too?’ Rose manages.

  
‘Every day.’ Finn’s hands are twisting in his lap.

  
Tears burn behind her eyes as she speaks. ‘But you’re still here. You didn’t run. You didn’t give up when you could have. How do you do it? How do you ever get it to stop? To shut it up, or shut it away?’

  
Finn looks at her. ‘You don’t.’

  
And three months, two weeks, and five days after her sister’s death, Rose Tico cries for the first time. Finn doesn’t speak, doesn’t come closer, but doesn’t leave, either; just stays with one hand on her shoulder, looking at her as calmly and resolutely as a gunner in the eye of an explosion.

* * *

  
‘She didn’t deserve it,’ she says once. ‘I should’ve been the one to go – I was the useless one. I was the one hiding in the corner while she was out on the battlefield.’

  
‘You were the one who stopped me running away,’ says Finn. ‘Pretty sure that makes you anything but useless. And even if you hadn’t done that, there’s no reason not to be proud of what you were already doing. Can’t run a spaceship without somebody to clean it up, or to keep it going.’  
  
Another stream of tears emerges when he says that. She can’t quite manage a thank you.

* * *

  
‘Why was I the one to stay?’ she asks, sometime later.

  
‘Can’t answer that,’ Finn says. ‘Might have to get onto Rey for that one – maybe she can phone up the Force and see what it has to say for itself. Can’t imagine the bills for that call, though.’

  
Rose laughs, wetly, and a small bubble of snot forms just below her nose.

* * *

  
When Rose rises from the dusty floor, her face is stiff with tears. It’s the first time that’s happened since she was sixteen, and she knows it’ll be far from the last. But her hands don’t shake for want of the grip of a tool, and her teeth aren’t clenched, and although sadness permeates her every pore, she is no longer straining to hold it all back.

  
‘C’mon,’ she says at last. ‘I think I want to find something to eat.’   
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
